Is there a way to make a quick animation PREVIEW, to evaluate motion, etc.?
You can OpenGL render a movie with the 'Render OpenGL' movie button, found in the lower right header of the viewport.

It'll use your regular render settings for frame ranges/formats.  Personally, I like to render a sequence of pngs/jpgs into a temp directory, and then load the sequence in the Sequence editor.  But some people prefer a separate movie player application.